Unifi 802.11ac AP's

C

ComputerBox34

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Nov 12, 2003
Messages
13,768
Has anybody deployed any yet?

If so, how are they?

I'm looking to deploy them in my home to future proof a bit and replace each of my old AP's one at a time as price goes down.

If you purchased, can you please post up the site where you got them from?
 
As I understand it, these have been announced, but are not shipping until mid-May, so maybe retail availability by June? I just had to pickup a new AP for home, and really wanted to go with the AC-capable version, but couldn't afford to wait.
 
I bought a Netgear R6300. Yep, it's pricey, but it seems to be pretty good as an AP. I use a pfSense box for the router for my home network. I found ebay to be better prices although I'm not sure why.

I don't have any AC capable wireless yet. I feel like I stayed on the old stuff forever, so I think I should be good for a while. I also updated my cable modem to a Motorola SB6141. Combined, I have about 150% download.speed compared to what I had before.

Based on my experience. Newer wireless is a pretty good idea.
 
Even if you just use the 5Ghz as wireless A its an upgrade over the Unifi pro. The db gain on the 5Ghz side is almost a 30% improvement over the unifi pro.
 
I'm curious if anyone has gotten theirs yet? I'm thinking of ordering 3 of these.
 
They had a competitive trial going on for comparison against Aruba and Cisco AP's that I signed up for. After the confirmation email, no contact. The original Unifi's are a home run, but they have a lot to learn about communication with clients and proper testing before release. I hope the .11ac AP's are better.
 
bleomycin said:
I'm curious if anyone has gotten theirs yet? I'm thinking of ordering 3 of these.
Click to expand...

Got mine last week and installed it. Its a single unit i a home environment. Replaced two separate APs with it. Power levels and performance are good enough to support N throughout the whole house and much of the outdoors on a single unit.

Unifi is typically impressive with a dirt-simple install and configuration. Took less than 30 minutes and most of that was physical work to mount it cleanly.

Was having lots of link dropout/stall/etc issues with certain i-devices (iphone 4s, iPad2, etc) on the old APs. All of those seem to be completely cleared up with this one.

No AC clients yet so no comment on the real objective of higher speed wireless.
 
Thread resurrection!

I got my Competitive Trial AP a couple weeks ago. It looks pretty with the blue light and all, but that's all I can really say about it. My unit has been freezing either after 24hr-ish or under file Xfer load. Tried different 4 different firmware versions, hard-resets, etc. I'm a bit frustrated with their support at this point, having sent in a detailed account of my issue along with trouble shooting steps. The response was the canned "Hard-reset it" email. I love their 1st gen stuff, it's been bullet proof for me, but the Pro's and the AC's make me nervous. They'll never make it to the true Enterprise level until they get this stuff worked out and put some legit effort into their tech support. To be honest, I'm not sure if I just got a bad unit or what, but considering their aim was to entice Aruba/Ruckus partners to jump on their bandwagon, it's not working.
 
Nate7311 said:
Thread resurrection!

I got my Competitive Trial AP a couple weeks ago. It looks pretty with the blue light and all, but that's all I can really say about it. My unit has been freezing either after 24hr-ish or under file Xfer load. Tried different 4 different firmware versions, hard-resets, etc. I'm a bit frustrated with their support at this point, having sent in a detailed account of my issue along with trouble shooting steps. The response was the canned "Hard-reset it" email. I love their 1st gen stuff, it's been bullet proof for me, but the Pro's and the AC's make me nervous. They'll never make it to the true Enterprise level until they get this stuff worked out and put some legit effort into their tech support. To be honest, I'm not sure if I just got a bad unit or what, but considering their aim was to entice Aruba/Ruckus partners to jump on their bandwagon, it's not working.
Click to expand...

Hope this isn't the case for me, we just bought 12 of these units to deploy across two floors in our office building.
 
What controller version are you using? I tried to go to the 3.0+ versions and my network went nuts. Apple devices couldn't connect anymore and was having constant connectivity issues. Had to roll back to 2.4.4

This was with regular 1st gen AP's
 
I've used ubiquiti at almost each product revision, and they are great for the house or small office but I would never trust my job to them.
 
So is AC now official? From my understanding it was still draft, so things could change.

And why did they (the ones that make these standards) not just call it O, less confusing. :p Then again N skipped a bunch of letters too. They're all over the place with this. :p
 
I keep seeing these issues in the ubnt forums but have yet to experience them. This is on a 20 AP network with 80+ devices a day. Id say half of them are Apple devices. Ive ran every beta version since the beginning and have only had portal issues.
 
I am having lock-up issues with my 802.11AC unit I am testing with it.

Overall I love UniFi equipment. I have 115 APs set up at work and have had really good success. It is a mix of UAP, UAP-LR, UAP-Outdoor, and UAP-Pro units. Basically their whole product line.
 
Red Squirrel said:
So is AC now official? From my understanding it was still draft, so things could change.

And why did they (the ones that make these standards) not just call it O, less confusing. :p Then again N skipped a bunch of letters too. They're all over the place with this. :p
Click to expand...

It is my understanding that they name the standards as they are suggested. So someone came up with a O, and it was not approved. There was also an AA, and AB before AC was approved.
 
Red Squirrel said:
So is AC now official? From my understanding it was still draft, so things could change.

And why did they (the ones that make these standards) not just call it O, less confusing. :p Then again N skipped a bunch of letters too. They're all over the place with this. :p
Click to expand...
because IEEE standards encompass more than just wireless. Basically anything networking related is IEEE approved (or makes it in proposal form). They obviously ran through 26 standards + 2 other standards to arrive at AC
 
/usr/home said:
I keep seeing these issues in the ubnt forums but have yet to experience them. This is on a 20 AP network with 80+ devices a day. Id say half of them are Apple devices. Ive ran every beta version since the beginning and have only had portal issues.
Click to expand...
You talking just UniFi controller SW/AP firmware or the new AC AP's as well?
 
ComputerBox34 said:
You talking just UniFi controller SW/AP firmware or the new AC AP's as well?
Click to expand...

Just the software and firmware. I'm only using regular APs as well. People were reporting these issues with the regular models as well. They have been rock solid for me.
 
wizdum said:
It is my understanding that they name the standards as they are suggested. So someone came up with a O, and it was not approved. There was also an AA, and AB before AC was approved.
Click to expand...

ComputerBox34 said:
because IEEE standards encompass more than just wireless. Basically anything networking related is IEEE approved (or makes it in proposal form). They obviously ran through 26 standards + 2 other standards to arrive at AC
Click to expand...

Here is the whole list of IEEE 802.11 standards, if you are interested. 802.11 covers everything WLAN. They do skip some letters though like 'x', and 'm' is reserved for maintenance to the standard (i.e. 802.11ma and 802.11mb)
 
Considering getting the AC AP, but after reading in this thread I'm not so sure anymore, now considering n Long range instead. Since it's so cheap.
 
Rudde93 said:
Considering getting the AC AP, but after reading in this thread I'm not so sure anymore, now considering n Long range instead. Since it's so cheap.
Click to expand...

IMO you're better off with a regular version. Indoors the LR aren't much stronger and most devices can maybe see the wireless but don't have the power to transmit back to the AP at that range.

I have one at home (regular version) and it covers my basement and two stories with full signal and covers my whole yard. It's sitting on the floor in my first floor living room.
 
/usr/home said:
IMO you're better off with a regular version. Indoors the LR aren't much stronger and most devices can maybe see the wireless but don't have the power to transmit back to the AP at that range.

I have one at home (regular version) and it covers my basement and two stories with full signal and covers my whole yard. It's sitting on the floor in my first floor living room.
Click to expand...

What about pro? Or does that have problems too?
 
Rudde93 said:
What about pro? Or does that have problems too?
Click to expand...

It's not a problem really it's just that you'll get roughly close to the same range with either. I haven't used the Pro but I believe it's range is similar to the regular one.
 
Rudde93 said:
Considering getting the AC AP, but after reading in this thread I'm not so sure anymore, now considering n Long range instead. Since it's so cheap.
Click to expand...

Unless your need either 5Ghz band or AC speeds. Stick with the standard or LR version. Those have been absolutely bulletproof for me.
 
The LR has a higher db antenna, which radiates less off axis. You also have to be mindful of what was said earlier about the AP being able to reach your client, but the client being unable to reach back.



The Pro adds more internal RAM, gigabit connectivity (really only useful if you use both 2.4 and 5Ghz radios at the same time), and independent radios. 2x2 MIMO on 2.4Ghz and 3x3 MIMO on 5Ghz.

The AC unit add additional RAM a better 5Ghz antenna array and normal POE compatibility and 3x3 MIMO on both bands.

The AC model has near 30% better 5Ghz signal strength than the Pro.

My advice: Go for either the Unifi std. or the Unifi AC.
 
Rudde93 said:
What about pro? Or does that have problems too?
Click to expand...

The pro seems expensive for what it is. It seems like only the base model is really a good "value" considering the problems they are having making the V3.x beta software work and turn these into true enterprise level gear. I was looking at the pro's for a project, but after browsing their forum & beta forum for the last few months, I'm holding off on any models besides the base model until the firmware appears more solid.
 
I have the base model, I was supposed to get free AC unit to test, but its been 2+ months and still nothing from Ubiquiti.
 
Ruffy said:
I have the base model, I was supposed to get free AC unit to test, but its been 2+ months and still nothing from Ubiquiti.
Click to expand...

Took me 3.5 months from initial registration to Approval email to delivery.
 
Well, Mine got RMA'd But I know another person in town that was accepted and I borrowed his until mine comes back from RMA. This new one is EXACTLY what I was looking for. So far it's been bulletproof on version 2.44. For testing I had 10 devices on the 2.4Ghz band streaming HD movies from the LAN, as well as my laptop and the wife's lappy on 5Hz band copying 30GB of files. Not one hiccup after 4 days so far, and given that neither of us have an .ac card, the speed was still pretty good. Hopefully, I just got a DOA one from the factory. I'll be testing the 3 Series of software this weekend.
 
Just a heads up, this unit may have issues due to hardware

"Given Ubiquiti's request for a retest and my desire to do this only once, I shared all this data with Ubiquiti before review. They even sent a second UAP-AC for retest, which produced results essentially the same as those published here. Their opinion is that the 2.4 GHz problems are most likely a manufacturing issue that they are looking into."

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-reviews/32202-ubiquiti-uap-ac-access-point-retest

At the moment its a tradeoff, either stick with 2.4.5 if you use mostly 2.4ghz or go with 3.1.4 if you use 5ghz

Kinda pissed off to be honest, I ended up returning my D-Link DGL-5500 due to weird wireless issues and now a $300 enterprise grade access-point has performance issues too. All I want is some decent N / AC speeds that is reliable for 2.4ghz (N) and 5ghz (AC). I am REALLY hoping they can resolve these issues via firmware and not have to RMA the device back for another hardware revision. I have been messing with my devices thinking they were the issue, only to stumble upon this review.
 
It took a while, I sent a few emails and dis get slow responses. Until I sent in my RMA. 2 weeks and no response.
 
Not sure, I'd go that far yet... I'm not trying to rip on Ubiquiti, only reporting my experiences. I've played with 2 .11AC units now, the first has been RMA'd and the second has been Rock Solid. I'm hoping it was only a production run issue.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top